My schedule today:
Women’s Space
Gardening project
I was asked to help at the English classes that are organised by We Are Here, another organisation that works at the camp and Dråpen i Havet cooperates with.
They offer English classes for women in different levels and had asked me to help with filling the sheets and teaching pronunciation for the new ones and sometimes give them some private coachings to them who needed most.
There are 22 women and teenage girls in the class and they have a lot of fun. Learning English is a big challenge for Arabic people. I understood this a few days ago, when a guy from Syria gave me a lesson Arabic weekdays. Arabic people use to read from right to left side and all their letters look different from our letters.
Usually the woman at the camp are very shy. Most of the time communication is mens task, but later that day I meet some women of the German class again. They are smiling, happy to meet me. Some even sway at me and call “hello teacher!”
I’m so happy about this and I’m really looking forward to the next lessons tomorrow.
In the evening we do a gardening project with children.
It is so amazing to see the positive energy in so many of the people and children ! (S.L., volunteer from Norway)
The children don’t want to get their clothes dirty. Also I don’t want to.
Do something together, burrow, play with water and make some buildings of sand, that’s a funny way to communicate even if you don’t speak any common language.
Children in Arabic cultures.
Growing up in an Arabic culture is very different from the usual experiences children make in our western cultures.
Often families use to live together in large families. Grandparents and older sisters take care for the smaller children. Having four or more children is not uncommon. In many families the women are 10 to 15 years younger than their husbands and start bearing children at young age.
Even very small children play outside the houses all day long. If something happens everyboby would help them. Communities take care for everyone’s wellbeing. Turned out of their family structure by the flight many people feel unsure in their parenting skills.